Responsible internationalization

President’s blog 29 March, 2023

When it comes to universities and colleges, one of the top issues in Swedish media today is – as no one could have failed to notice – our international collaborations. Media points out that there are inappropriate collaborations, sometimes problematic from a security policy point of view. There are also claims that universities are naive and do not understand in what way a foreign power can exploit these collaborations to harm Sweden.

We find ourselves in the most serious security policy situation in many decades, and it is both natural and reasonable that these issues are high on the agenda for everyone involved. It is of course of utmost importance that our universities do not contribute to jeopardizing Sweden’s security. At the same time, there is a clear conflict of goals here. While security policy considerations easily lead to a desire to limit contacts as much as possible, as a precaution, academia is essentially global, and international exchange has been our modus operandi ever since the first universities were founded in the Middle Ages. How then can one navigate this difficult and dangerous terrain?

A possible key wording is the one usually employed for open research data: “As open as possible, as closed as necessary”. Openness is the baseline – but it may be necessary to limit it in various ways for good reasons.

STINT (The Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education) published an important report on the issue a while ago, “Recommendations to higher education institutions on how to work with responsible internationalisation”. The Association of Swedish Higher Education Institutions (SUHF) also appointed a geopolitical council a couple of years ago, “SUHF global relations advisory group” (in Swedish), which advises universities on concrete issues regarding different countries. SUHF has also recently developed a number of indicators for responsible internationalization, “Checklist – Global Responsible Engagement”. The six indicators are “Democratic principles and restricted academic freedom”, “Partner reputation and university values”, “Conflicts regarding use of data, IPR and patent rights”, “Misuse of research and negative unintended applications”, “Ethical dumping and security around personnel and biological data” and “Personal safety”. This checklist is intended as a support for universities in their important work of assessing what security aspects might have to be considered in each individual collaboration.

Higher education institutions, both in Sweden and internationally, are where we find the chief expertise on different regions and on the risk factors that may exist there. Now it is important that we use and share this knowledge, so that it will benefit all universities and researchers in Sweden.

Astrid Söderbergh Widding
President